sjh - mountain biking linux geek spice - mtb / linux / canberra / cycling / etc

Steven Hanley hackergotchi picture Steven
Hanley
About

email: sjh@svana.org

web: http://svana.org/sjh

Other online diaries:

Aaron Broughton,
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Allan Bontjer,
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Chris Yeoh,
Jeremy Kerr,
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Michael Carden,
Michael Davies,
Michael Still,
Rusty Russell,
Tim Potter,
Tony Breeds,

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Fri, 05 Mar 2010

10 MTB Tips - 11:10
Last year I saw a list of Joss Wheedon's top 10 writing tips and then last week there was a surge of top 10 writers tips with The Guardian publishing quite a few in two articles (Neil offered up his there for example). All of these are full of good information and a lot of it can apply to other disciplines. However looking for something to write about here I am obviously not qualified to offer up writing tips. I thought I would make an effort on some mountain biking tips, as I have been doing a bit more coaching (CORC Junior Program) recently I have been thinking more about some of this stuff.

  1. Relax, this is really a critical element when it comes to any sort of cycling. Recently I heard one of my stretching instructors telling everyone listening that if you look at Lance Armstrong on a bike he really is as relaxed as possible on the bike. The same definitely applies to mountain biking. Hold your position well with core strength but keep your body and notably arms and legs relaxed and loose. You need to control the bike but let the bike flow under you while you can focus on riding. The more tense you are the more energy you waste and the more you may get bounced around by the terrain. The more relaxed you are on the bike the better you can handle surprises in terrain, a rock garden or some other obstacle around a corner that you were not expecting, if you are relaxed on the bike you should flow over terrain more smoothly.

  2. Look up, especially in mountain biking, but also to some extent in all riding you need to be aware of things out around you, the faster you are going the further ahead you should be looking. In a bunch ride on the road or riding in a race or with a group of people through single track do not only focus on the wheel in front of you. Stay aware of things all around you, focus as far as you can up the single track and continually look for lines and terrain details. Sure you can watch the rider in front, if they are a better rider than you seeing what lines they use is a boon. However you also want to be looking ahead and know what is coming up as far ahead as you can. There is no need to look right in front of your bike at the ground and obstacles you are about to ride over, if you have already seen it the brain is really amazing at keeping track of details like that.

  3. Have fun, I think this one may even be in the wrong place, it really should be first, not obviously a skill, however you should try to ensure you love your riding and are having fun doing it. If you are not having fun you will not have the motivation to do it well. Try not to get stuck in a rut, even with a training plan try to ensure when you are on the bike you are enjoying it. The more fun you have riding bikes the more you will want to do it. This is one of the things I get upset about when I see some coaches pushing juniors to ride (often in road coaching) so much they begin to hate the sport. You really want to ensure kids grow up thinking everything about cycling is fun, it will motivate them to stick with it. If you push them so hard and they have no time to have fun both on the bike and in other aspects of life they will not stick with the sport, no matter how talented or gifted they are.

  4. Practice, this is not something you have to go and do separately, however the more you muck around practicing your skills while riding the better those skills will be. When riding muck around, pull hops and jumps over anything and everything. Look for unusual lines and try to nail them, if you are riding along a fire trail don't just sit there and pedal, look around and see if there are things you can do to hone your skills and then do them. The best riders I know or know of all do this when they are out riding. DeathMarch, Morgs, Mal, Shane, Wiggy, Paul Rowney, etc. When you ride with them outside of races they are all pulling wheelies, jumping over things, taking unusual lines, taking alternate tracks, jumping up and down gutters, analysing terrain for lines and trying different and unusual things out. This constant improvement of skills while out riding for the fun of it helps a great deal, you hone your abilities and find new ways of doing things you can use later on.

  5. Fitness helps, I know this sounds like a well duh! sort of statement, however it goes further. The fitter you are the more energy you can spare for your brain to focus on riding and lines and position. When I raced back in the mid 90s as a junior I remember noticing how I slowed down so much after my first lap and kept slowing down. It was as if I no longer had technical skill at times. It sounds boring but if you can get out there and do a lot of km on the road and interval work and other things that improve fitness it will help your mountain biking a lot as you will not be using all your energy just to keep pushing the pedals.

  6. Stay of the brakes and flow, tests on the Sydney Olympic course with the AIS mtb team and more recently with the elite level XC riders back up this, the idea of maintaining flow and staying off the brakes to conserve energy. Hooking up power meters and GPS and HRM and all that to mountain bikers and then getting data from them as they ride around a course. The faster riders often seem to be slower through some sections and yet come out in front. This is largely due to holding their speed, they know what speed they can take into corners and maintain that, they do not sprint between each corner, slam on the brakes, sprint out of it to the next corner and so on. Instead they hold a speed that will get them through the corners and break minimally at all times. The difference in energy used when you focus on cornering well without touching the brakes and have no need to sprint up to speed again is immense. After all using the brakes is just going to slow you down.

  7. Cross train and don't get bored, this ties in to having fun out there exercising and to the fact that fitness helps a lot. I am sure some people can still have fun when only doing one sort of riding and nothing else and still enjoy it. However variety helps a lot I think, try other cycling disciplines (road for fitness, downhill for skills maybe. bmx or 4X for skills and sprints) and even try other sports (I run and kayak and swim a lot too) and if you are not having fun with them maybe try doing them in groups or try other sports that you can find ways to do that you find fun. Weather is not always suited to getting on the bike, so you could go for a run or swim in the rain. Kayaking, swimming and indoor rock climbing use some other part of the body than the legs, also mountain biking does require upper body strength and control so keeping the upper body toned helps. Doing different sports (if you have time) gives you something else to focus on and often makes you keener to get back to the mountain bike.

  8. Race, whatever your cycling discipline you will find racing is different to just heading out for ride. If you race mountain bikes against people faster than you trying to keep up with them is good practice, also you will see them doing things you may not have realised worked or were possible and you can try them out. Also just about everyone will go harder and put more effort into racing than into training. You want to keep up, your competitive spirit kicks in and you push yourself harder. One example I often tell people is that I do a kayak session with friends most weeks, we head out for an hour or so and my HR almost never goes above 135. Through summer I do a 10 km paddling time trial with a local club and my HR average for the whole 50 minutes is over 160. Even when I feel like I am putting in efforts outside of a race I seem to not be going anywhere near as hard as in the race. Also in mountain biking being surrounded by people faster and slower than you helps a great deal in getting used to passing and being passed on single track and in other areas.

  9. Speed confidence and trusting the bike, a lot of this comes from experience, however it is often worth pushing yourself a bit. Generally our bikes can ride somewhere far faster and better than our brains will let us. If you can begin to overcome that and simply let the bike go at speed you often find everything turns out well. The faster you go over rough terrain or rocks the less they will affect you and the quicker you will get past them. When it is muddy or sandy trying to control the bike may cause more problems than simply balancing, holding on and going with the flow of the track, you can still apply pressure and get the tyres to bite where you see the track can help and when you need to, however staying upright and going with the flow helps a great deal. When approaching anything on the trail you really want to try to get in the head space of relaxing and having a go, once you have ridden it you know you can. If you do not try you will never get over it. You may surprise yourself.

  10. Ride lots, another well duh one maybe and everyone is time poor in the modern world, but the more time you spend on the bike out there mountain biking the better you will become. So long as you have the time and are enjoying riding make an effort to get out there lots and your skills will show improvement. This is very similar to some of the writers hints, they say write lots and you will get better, they are on to something there.

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Tue, 02 Mar 2010

More Mont awesomeness - 14:17

New and Old Zing Vests (fullsize) 		By far one of my favourite pieces of clothing is my Mont Zing Vest, I bought my first back in March 2006, then it was shredded in a crash in April 2008, I had however bought a second vest at that point, in yellow. Most cycling vests have mesh backs, I dislike these as I wear my vest to paddle and a waterproof back is great paddling. Also for warmth year round in all manner of activities (running, rogaines, etc) the lack of mesh is a bonus I think.

Due to the fact I use the vest so often through the colder months it is often damp or wet when I want to use it (soaking from paddling to ride home in winter, or from wearing for a run to get home), thus I was keen to get a few more. Mont are a great company and Dave has been very nice to me in the past. They had run out of Zing vests in my size and I had been asking Dave when I would be able to buy two more for a while. He had some ready for the yearly sale that is on next week and told me to come visit. However he had only had yellow vests made, which I was keen to buy another one of, I was however hoping for some colour variety. Dave then offered to make a few out of whatever colour Hydronaute ultra they had in the factory. Sure it is not pink but I am definitely partial to purple too so I was excited to be able to get two brand new vests in purple.

Did the Ainslie run up at lunch today, was letting my HR creep above 180 and then remembered I should not be going too hard so backed it off to 176 or so for the rest of the run up. Still did 15:16 which I thought was alright.

[/mtb/gear] link

Mon, 01 Mar 2010

A race surprise and helmets - 17:12
So I will be once more competing in the Jindabyne Multisport race as a solo this coming weekend. This is one of my favourite races on the calendar. I competed solo the last two years (2009, 2008) and in teams previously (2007, 2006). So there was a CORC 3 hour mountain bike race on at Sparrow on Saturday afternoon. I thought it would be a good idea to do it and have a last good hit out on the mountain bike before Jindabyne.

For the rest of this week I will not be doing any training efforts over an hour and not much hard stuff, especially later in the week. I have to admit I have been focusing on getting my bike form back to some reasonable level the last few months, maybe something approaching the bike form I had back in 2004 (before I did so much paddling, running and swimming as well as riding). I must say though I never expected this sort of result. At the race on Saturday I finished 10th overall, with 328 people competing, taking into account the teams around 280 people on track. I was racing on my single speed, so I won the single speed category (largely because Chris was having some mechanicals due to being silly enough to make a major change to his bike the day before) and was only beaten by some strong teams and some solos. I was only 1 minute behind Bleeksie and his team mate for example. Riding 8 laps, which it seems only around 20 people managed to complete.

Well I hope that performance helps me on the bike legs, I definitely am hoping to take 30 or 40 minutes off the time for the long bike leg at Jindabyne for the last two years, something closer to 2h30m again would be good.

As for helmets, my good helmet for 2 years now has been a rather neat Giro Animas with hot pink flames. However Giro has discontinued that model and also no longer makes the E2 which was my previous favourite model of helmet. None of the current helmets released by Giro have such a good colour scheme (in my opinion), if I happened to break my current helmet I would have to get something boring. However I have noticed a shop over in the US has Animas in stock still in pink, I am sorely tempted to buy two more (they have them really cheap) so I have a stock pile of helmets just in case. I wonder if this is being silly. When I have some more spare money (new bike just having been purchased on its way here now) I may have to stockpile helmets...

[/mtb/events] link

Mon, 18 Jan 2010

Abel Tasman Kayaking - 15:28

Camping Observation Beach, Abel Tasman NP (fullsize) 		Keith and I met up for a kayaking trip in Abel Tasman National Park when we were both in New Zealand. The photos are all up on my Abel Tasman Kayaking January 2010 Page

As Keith said this is something that should be on everyone's bucket list. An incredible area and some wonderful kayaking. We were thinking about it a fair bit and we both think there are other ways you can approach this trip that would be fun. Heidi told me there is an Abel Tasman marathon sometime in September, I am thinking that it would be a lot of fun to run up the track to the end in one day, get your gear dropped up there for camping along with a fast AR double kayak. The next day leave your gear there to be picked up and kayak back.

Otherwise we both think doing the track walk to the end and then kayaking back, or maybe walking in from the other end of the track and doing a remote park start for your kayak trip at Tonga Beach (this is the farthest north the rented kayaks will be dropped off) and paddle back to Marahau.

I had a lot of fun on the trip and the fact we did not have a nice fast kayak such as Matilda was not really a problem as we are on holiday and not trying to go fast or anything. I did miss Matilda a bit at times but I got over it.

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Sun, 10 Jan 2010

Rotorua Summer MTB Series - Bike Vegas - 23:28

Green Lake near Rotorua (fullsize) 		Much to my delight I found out when I arrived in Rotorua that there was a mountain bike race on this Sunday. The Bike Vegas Summer MTB Series, this is a series of 45km point to point races through the Whakarewarewa Forest where the legendary redwoods single track are.

The rest of the series are 24th Jan and 14th Feb so I will obviously miss these events, I headed out to race today though and had a great time. I got to catch up with Gaz from NZO Clothing which was good as he was there racing. (and he beat my by a few minutes, way to go Gaz)

My GPS Map for the race shows where the race went, starting going the wrong way up the rock drop track and then onto many others, I can not work out the order exactly (writing this without the GPS trace in front of me right now) but remember it included Pigeon Run, Pig Track Link, Mad If You Dont, Mossy Track, around next to Green Lake (gorgeous/spectacular scenery there), No Brains, the end of Old Chevy (with the fun gap jump), Spring Roll, Sweet & Sour, Be Rude Not To, Lion Trail, Turkish Delight, Soakhole, Grinder, The Dipper, and Tahi.

I had not ridden some of the green tracks since the 2005 Moonride 12 Hour, others I probably would not have ridden if it were not for the race today and some of the tracks are the classics that should be ridden every time you come here. I had a great time and think it was an excellent race format (they had a 25 KM option also for people who did not want quite such a long race).

[/mtb/events] link

Sat, 09 Jan 2010

Rotorua mountain biking - 07:47
I know we have it good in Canberra for mountain bike trails, there are many times I think people who live in Rotorua are even better off though. In the lead up to linux.conf.au this year I am having a week and a half of play time in New Zealand before the conference. At the moment I am staying with a friend in Rotorua for a few days and we have been doing some rides the last two days.

For example I put this status update onto Facebook on Thursday night. "a-trail, tickler, frontal lobotomy, billy t, split enz, pondy downhill, pondy new, roller coaster, chop suey, corners, be rude not to, exit trail" which were the tracks I rode in this 47 km ride on Thursday. Oh so much fun to be had on the mountain bike here.

You can see the Rotorua trail map online now days at the Rotorua NZ website which is handy. I bought a copy at a bike shop the other day to get around with too. Yesterday one of the highlights was the track Old Chevy which just goes on seemingly for ever and is as awesome as any of the great tracks here.

Yesterday morning we rode into town for some shopping and on the way back my crank snapped, last time it was the left crank, this time the right crank. So I rode one legged back to the house and we then took the bike into a shop and they are putting some XT cranks on. Jen got a bunch of photos of me riding one legged as she thought it was hilarious.

I thought my riding for the day was over as the bike would take until the next morning to get fixed up (and without all my bike tools I could not just buy the part and do it myself), however the completely awesome guys at KiwiBikes next to Zippys Cafe in town just happened to have an awesome Titus hardtail demo bike they loaned me overnight so I could keep on riding. Awesome guys, great shop, and they hand build some pretty nifty bikes. Anyway some more fun to be had coming up soon.

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Tue, 22 Dec 2009

Pretty average bar tape, a 7 month report. - 14:06
My new road bike, a 2008 model Kona Kapu in Orange I purchased in April, came with white bar tape wrapped up to just past the brake hoods. The bar is one of the new flat topped ergo style bars. Though as it is aluminium rather than carbon it will feel quite cold on chilly mornings. Due to my firm belief that white bar tape is almost as wrong as white knicks and the fact I did not want to get chilly hands on the bare aluminium I decided to get new bar tape for the bike.

I searched around trying to find orange coloured tape for a while and found the Lizard Skins tape in a good shade of orange at a shop here. The Lizard Skins tape had some good reviews for the tacky grip feel and seemed alright, though it was around twice the price of most traditional cork or synthetic cork tape. Now 7 months after purchasing the grip tape and putting it on the bike I have discovered the two major problems with it are that it gets dirty and the packaging recommended against using any cleaning agent other than plain water on it as it may deteriorate the grip. I can deal with this as it is sort of in the nature of grip tape to become dirty over time.

My bigger gripe is that I noticed the last few days that after only 7 months the grip tape is wearing out on some of the points I have my hands in contact with the bars the most often. Previously I have had grip tape last for 3 or 4 years before wearing out enough to require replacing so I am definitely disappointed in this and in the next few days will pull off the tape and put on some much cheaper cork tape in orange from a different brand.

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Fri, 11 Dec 2009

Paddle times improving all round - 15:49
This week I set a pb at paddling, 49m52s for the 9.6 km on the GPS (first time ever under 50 minutes). Randall also set another PB (second week running doing that for him) of 47:08 (I still have almost 3 minutes to gain there...), he is also getting closer to Brendan and other fast paddlers which is good. Danielle missed the time trial this week, however last week smashed her PB and wen well under 60 minutes for the first time, getting 58:59. It is good to see progress happening all over here, lets hope we can all keep it up for a while at least. Brendan has mentioned it took him 4 or so years to get to his speed doing a fairly large amount of paddling, none of us AR nuts really get the time to paddle more than twice a week most weeks though so do not improve as fast as we could potentially otherwise.

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Fri, 04 Dec 2009

Chameleon Pedals - 17:14

New pedals indoors (fullsize)
New pedals in the sunshine (fullsize)
On my way through civic today I had a flat tyre on the CX bike, so I stopped in at Onya to get it fixed, Gareth showed me these pedals I had to buy a pair of. After all my good flat pedals have gone walk about so I really needed new flat pedals. They look like plain pedals D may even like until you take them outside in the sunshine and they have an almost instant colour change. Rock on, will look just right on the pink hardtail during events I need to use flat pedals with.

[/mtb/gear] link

Mon, 30 Nov 2009

Cruising around the AROC Sprint on Saturday - 16:04

Selina, Celia, Mark and Randall at presentations (fullsize) 		While Nathan, DaveS and Wayne were Moseying around the AROC classic course on Saturday just a little bit faster than the Mosey of Selina, Mark and Randall and that of Danielle, Matt and Gary. I was also out there cruising around with Ron and Tony. Strangely I was carrying a camera so took a few photos, my AROC Sprint Race 2 for 2009 photos are online. The results and race photos and stuff can be found linked from the event page at AROC Sports.

[/mtb/events] link

Mon, 16 Nov 2009

Triple Triathlon 2009 - 17:24

Dave and Julie finishing (fullsize) 		I was unable to compete this year, but I got out there and cheered on my friends and took a whole lot of photos which can be found at my 2009 Triple Triathlon photos page.

I hope everyone racing had fun, I enjoyed following the race.

[/mtb/events] link

Thu, 05 Nov 2009

Oh no fast - 13:30
Last summer when the lake was open and I was able to do paddle time trials a few times, I did not really go very fast, looking at my GPS records from December onwards I did not even go under 52 minutes for the 9.6km time trial last summer. So yesterday arvo I rocked up for the first summer time trial of the season at the river.

Thinking I had not paddled much over winter and I had not had many sustained efforts of 10km non stop I was expecting I would probably push the pace a bit to do 54 minutes. So imagine my surprise when, after wash riding a slower wash than I should have been paddling for the first few km and then going it alone I ended up doing 50:52 in the time trial.

Sure I am happy to have that sort of speed, however I must admit to being somewhat paniced that now over summer I should in theory get faster most weeks, I really will have to crack my goal of sub 50 soon I suppose. Eeek.

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Sat, 24 Oct 2009

Cranks are not suposed to do this I think. - 20:36

One solution to increase right leg strength (fullsize) 		Leading a ride today, pulled a gap jump and was a little bit slow, so landed a bit hard with my back tyre just clearing the lip. Suddenly found my left foot a lot closer to the ground than it should be. Oh a broken crank, only one year old. The bigger problem was as ride guide for a familiarisation ride I was not sure anyone else of the 23 people I was showing this course to knew the rest of the route for the ride.

Fortunately someone knew the way through to Mt Taylor on this leg and I was able to swing a lift with someone to get home rather than ride one legged from Stromlo home. Mr Milton I am not.

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Mon, 12 Oct 2009

Scott 24 Hour Photos - 20:03
While out at the 24 hour this weekend I managed to take a few photos I have now uploaded to a page, 2009 Scott 24 Hour photos. I also provided bandwidth this morning for the Sportograf guys to upload their photos. They took 85,000 over the weekend, the best of set are already up and they should have the rest public by Wednesday sometime.

[/mtb/events] link

Tue, 06 Oct 2009

Googong Multisport Challenge, more Sri Chinmoy fun - 13:24
Similar to the Yerrabi race in May but longer and tougher, the Googong Multisport challenge was on this weekend. I went and competed again and had fun. So did a number of friends. Photos and other stuff at my Googong Multisport Challenge 2009 page. Thanks to the local Sri Chinmoy Events crew for more fun this weekend.

[/mtb/events] link

Fri, 25 Sep 2009

Astro cycling help - 22:15

Astro Road Assistance (fullsize) 		To go along with my habit of bender dolls, robot dogs, cute animal horns, etc somewhere on all my bikes I was starting to notice the lack of something extra mounted somewhere on my new road bike. Fortunately while in landspeed records tonight I saw something that helped me fix this situation. With the dual advantage of offering some extra rocket assistance on the road bike and nicely accessorising one of my cycling outfits how could I pass this one up?

[/mtb/gear] link

Tue, 15 Sep 2009

Hard day in the heat at the Angry Doctor - 14:33
I put some photos I took at the Angry Doctor on line, none of them particularly good. Though showing off the awards ceremony for the spectacular efforts by Heather, Julie, Libby and Sam.

What with the worlds taking up a lot of time, and no real serious cycling efforts recently I have been continuing to rely on my base cycle fitness for all the bike efforts I do. This event came down to relying on that again. I do however think I made some mistakes. It was well over 30 Celsius down there for the race, I normally struggle in the heat so should have expected to here also.

I did not pay much attention to hydration or salts intake the day before of morning before the start. Then going out harder than I should have I was feeling good until at 30km I was hit with some nasty cramps. My reaction to that was to consume a lot of liquid. 2 litres of water from the camel back, one full bottle and two half bottles of sports drink (borrowed from others) all used up before reaching 50km. I took on two bottles of sports drink and 3 litres of water at 50km and used that all up by 70km going for 10km until the aid station with no liquid.

I did not overheat which is good, however with bad cramps for 70km and being unable to put much power down I was annoyed with my race. I probably washed too much liquid through my system, though being scared of overheating (and heat stroke type problems) I think maybe I should have tried to have more salty foods and solid foods instead of the mostly gels I used all day. Chips may have worked a treat or salty biscuits. Of course a heck of a lot more time on the bike would also help. I think this is something I should seriously concentrate on getting back before Jindabyne next year, some good bike form rather than relying on base all the time.

Anyway it was still a good event on spectacular trails, I am keen to repeat the effort next year.

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Wed, 02 Sep 2009

2009 Mountain Bike World Championships in Canberra are finally happening. - 07:32

Ben Henderson practising the course (fullsize) 		The worlds most incredible riders are all finally here for the Worlds. It is on and happening. I have been taking photos (and will continue to do so) while I am out there working on site (two weeks of holiday from work to do so).

Yesterday was the first race (Team Relay) which was won by the Italian team. I finally have had a few moments spare to upload my photos so far (though this has made me late on site this morning). My worlds photos are all on my 2009 Mountain Bike World Championships Photos page (no time to spell check this morning)

[/mtb/events] link

Fri, 21 Aug 2009

Where many of my friends will be next week - 12:36
So a lot of my friends I regularly ride bikes with will be over in East Timor next week for the inaugural Tour de Timor, this looks like an excellent event in the making and I would love to be there. The timing however was simply too close to the Mountain Bike World Championships which start on September 1st here in Canberra at Stromlo, there is a lot of work to be done out there next week and I am having the next two weeks off work to work out there with the other CORC people who have been putting in so much time and effort to bring this event to Canberra.

Still I wish Libby, Chris, Gary, Bleeksie, Cameron, and the rest of them an excellent time over there and I look forward to hearing how much fun it was when they return from their adventure.

[/mtb/events] link

Sat, 01 Aug 2009

N=N+2 more steel in the stable - 17:28

New Single Speed mtb(fullsize)


New Road Bike(fullsize)

In April, not too long after my house mate had gotten herself a lovely new light road bike I got to thinking about my road bike. For the previous year and a half since my Lemond developed another crack in the frame I had been riding the Cyclocross bike as my road bike. However Cyclocross bikes with road tyres on are sort of neutered not being used for their true purpose (being able to go anywhere, off road or on fast) in my opinion. So thinking how I wanted to run CX tyres on it more and use it off road more I decided to buy a new road bike.

I admit I was tempted by the ultra light weight carbon wonder bikes such as the full Ultegra Jamis Xenith that had recently appeared in the garage or maybe a Scott CR1. However I have a well known tendency to break bikes, and I am a self confessed fan of steel bikes. Mal happened to offer me a good deal on a 2008 (the orange coloured one, not the uglier 2009 yellow one) Kona Kapu steel road bike with full Ultegra. This is a lovely frame, with polished steel lugs and brazing rather than TIG welding to construct it. As they say (in the clever marketing) on the website "A beautiful, old school lugged frame that harks (yep... used the word "hark") back to when frames were meticulously crafted in only small batches by guys named Giuseppe."

And at 9.1 KG it really is not much heavier than a similarly specced carbon wonder bike (maybe 1 KG heavier, all of which is in the frame and steel fork). I am very happy with this new bike and it even continues a trend of orange gear and clothing I was going through about 4 or 5 years ago. I may soon put open pro wheels on this bike and put these open sport wheels on the CX bike, I changed the bar tape to orange as seen to the left and put my preferred saddle and more puncture resistant tyres on it. Lovely bike to ride I must say and no carbon in site.

The other new bike, purchased about 3 weeks ago is my self proclaimed fad bike. When I first built up my old single speed it was just from parts I had sitting around in the shed really. I thought at the time I probably would not like single speeding and would not long after turn it into a geared bike. I was wrong and discovered I really like riding single speeds. One of the things I really missed on my single speed is the disc brakes I was used to riding on other mountain bikes. Then recently when I began to notice the chain tension did not stay as tight as I liked due to the wheel slipping forward in the quick release tightened back wheel I was getting a little annoyed with my SS.

I could have simply put a bolt on axle on and kept riding it without that problem, instead I went and bought a new bike. This is my fad bike as I can claim it has five fads in one bike. First I thought I would try out 29 inch wheels, just for something different, then it is a single speed, fully rigid with Mary bars and disc brakes (the JohnJohn fad). What with this and the cyclocross bike you could argue many of my bike purchases in the last two years have been about making mountain biking harder for myself. However this is a fun bike to ride, the 29 inch wheels are not better or anything, simply different, and different can be exciting anyway. Long term I may become soft and buy suspension for it, also I am undecided on the benefit of the Mary bars, I may put normal bars with bar ends on it eventually also. Chain tension is kept on this with an eccentric BB which allows the discs to be mounted normally with no complexity.

[/mtb/gear] link

Mon, 27 Jul 2009

Ouch, good to have other options. - 15:14
I was able to get the CX bike running again, new chain, cluster, hanger and fixing the wheel. I also have a hub, spokes and rim to build a new nicer back wheel sitting in the shed at home. The cluster had a tooth missing on one sprocket, which if it had been ripped off before the hanger broke may have caused the hanger to break as I changed into that gear.

I got it all working again by the weekend just gone as Vikings (with CORC support) were running a Cyclocross race at Stromlo (sponsored by Maladjusted) and I was keen to have a go. Even though the top grade was won by three mountain bikers I think the course was well set up for Cyclocross bikes and the event was fun.

My ouch comes from a crash I had, cornering off the criterium track onto the concrete about to dismount to run up the stairs and my front tyre slipped and I went sliding on my right hip on the cement for a few metres. I have a large bruise and graze on my hip and am unable to put power through my right leg on the bike or walk normally at the moment. I kept going and finished the race (this happened at the end of my 3rd of 7 laps). I did however slow down a lot no longer being able to use my right leg for much more than ballast.

I guess I should be kind of glad I have swimming and paddling to fall back on this week as I am unable to ride hard or run at all for a few days at least. I will try a swim squad session tonight and hope I can get away with doing that. The tour is now over too so we can all start getting reasonable amounts of sleep each night again which helps recovery and ability to go hard in exercise.

Now I just hope I recover enough by Saturday to do the 8 hour Rogaine down the coast without too much pain. Bodalla state forest sounds like a nice (if somewhat hilly) area so it should be fun.

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Sun, 12 Jul 2009

Snap! - 18:33
Riding to a meeting on Friday afternoon on my CX bike (Jake the Snake) I was turning onto Northbourne and accelerating when suddenly I hear a crunch noise and my back wheel locks up. Looking down as I skid to a stop I see my rear dearailleur jammed into the back wheel. The hanger had snapped, not due to a stick or anything, maybe a tight kink in the chain, very strange.

Getting my hands greasy and black trying to pull stuff off I eventually had to tie it all onto the frame and scooter my way home to grab the car. I bought a new hanger already, the derailleur was a bit bent however I think I have straightened it enough to work, the chain was now definitely bent so I will need to go and buy a new chain, also the back wheel suffered one broken spoke. I think I may finally build a better back wheel for this bike than the stock Aksium it came with, as I have an open pro rim and some spokes that should fit an ultegra hub in the shed I may do that soon.

Also I have just put bars and stem I like more (rather than the cinelli stuff that was there) on to the fixie, along with new black and white grip tape to match the panda on the bars. I fixed the front hub on my main geared mtb yesterday by putting two new bearing races into it, now it is smooth and no longer loose.

The other thing I was just trying to do was to see if I could get any more air out of the rear brake line on the new single speed. When I picked it up the rear brake could be held to the bar while pedalling. So I grabbed some Shimano brake oil and squeezed as much air as would come out easily from the hose last Monday. However the brake still comes too far in for my liking. However when I was working on it last Monday I must have stripped the stupid (anything smaller than 3mm is stupid IMO) allen key screw on the lever for bleeding so I could not remove it to try again today. Need to get a bike shop to swap the bleed screw now (and may be soft and get it bled at the same time)

I competed in the CORC XC race at sparrow this morning on the new single speed, all went well, except my rocking up late so I raced in sport C rather than sport B men. I started riding about a minute and a half after the field started. As I was starting late and riding a rigid single speed I thought it may not be completely unfair to be riding down a grade. However looking at the results I won the race. Ooops, I really should have been in my normal grade. (I could have raced single speed, it did not really occur to me at the time, and that would have been fairer, I would have come 5th or so with my time today)

Anyway Jake the Snake is off the road at least until I buy the new chain and get a new spoke for the Aksium. The other bikes are all reasonably alright though. On Wednesday night I changed the tyres on the new road bike to the Specialized Armadillos as I got sick of the Continental light weight racing tyres flatting so often. I should get back to commuting around the place on the fixie anyway rather than Jake so this is good incentive to do that for a while.

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Wed, 08 Jul 2009

One power house with no team? - 20:46
Looking at the photos from the TTT at the tour last night it appears every photo of Silence-Lotto on the stage report has Cadel on the front of the train. So sure we all know he has been let down once more by a weaker team at the tour, I also admit I have not watched the full live coverage of the stage. I do however begin to wonder, did Cadel end up doing a huge amount of the pulls for the whole TTT and then pulled away from most of his team mates in the last km. That appears to be riding harder than the effort by Cancellara at the end for Saxobank.

I really feel sorry for Cadel, now with so many strong Astana riders way up in the standing it looks like it will be a difficult task to gain time.

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Mon, 29 Jun 2009

Lots of time on foot - 11:09
Yesterday I carried my Garmin in a jar in my backpack so I now know I did 42.8km in the 4h47 minutes spent moving during the metrogaine yesterday. In the end we came in 14 minutes late. After our score was adjusted for the loss of 140 points we had 830 points.

Early on in the event my camelback bladder burst when I slipped walking down off Mt Ainslie and landed on the backpack. Fortunately our course was taking us around 500 metres from my house so we made a detour 20 minutes later and I got a new bladder and changed out of my soaked jersey. Later on on Black Mountain we made a small nav error coming down from the summit trail looking for a 40 point control. We started looking for it too early above the fire roads. It took us about 8 minutes of searching and looking at land features to realise they did not match, look closer at the map and realise we had to head down another 100 metres in a gully to find the control.

Paul was a strong team mate and we got through the day well, today I hurt a lot I can definitely feel I did something on the weekend.

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Sat, 27 Jun 2009

Some races this weekend - 17:01
Today I went out to sparrow hill and raced in the CORC 3 hour race at Sparrow Hill, it was kind of fun. Though my lack of long rides in the last year or two shows, I was pretty good for 2 hours keeping my speed up and heart rate above 150, then my last two and a half laps I just did not have any oomph left in me to go hard. Still a good event, huge turnout, thanks to Paul, Sue, Sherri, Russ, etc for putting it on and to Kent and Bec for the coffee and Leanne for the food out there.

Tomorrow I will be doing the 2009 ACTRA Metrogaine with a friend Paul. As Paul is fit and keen to have a good crack at it I suspect we will both be pushing ourselves pretty hard for the 5 hours of the event. Ahh well I need to do more stuff like races this weekend to HTFU from time to time I think. Fun has been and will be had.

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Fri, 12 Jun 2009

Fairy Geo - Geoquest Half 2009 - 12:12

The snake I stepped on (fullsize) 		Okay so the name Fairy Geo may not be entirely fair, however I heard Pete (from Entropic who won the half) start using the term (largely due to the Fairy Bells at Hells Bells) and I liked it. This year I had no plan to enter the full Geo, so when my cousin Scott asked me to be on his team I was kind of interested. Largely because the race was not at all daunting or challenging sounding to only do the half with a team not trying to go faster than the full course teams.

So I went up there last weekend and had a fun 29 hours of racing. Both my team mate Greg and I took photos which I have uploaded to a 2009 Geoquest Photos page, thanks to Scott, Greg and Su for a good race. Many thanks to Kim and Terry for support and I hope everyone enjoyed it, I did.

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Wed, 10 Jun 2009

Reasons for O pants - 14:33

Evidence of forgotten equipment (fullsize) 		At home I have Orienteering pants, Gore Tex gators, Cycling Leg warmers and a few other options for covering my legs when Rogaining, or racing. These are all good items of clothing to have and most useful to keep your legs from getting too scratched. It helps even more when you do not leave them all in Canberra when heading off for a race.

Look at the photo and guess what clothing I left in Canberra this time round when I headed up for the Fairy Geo. My shins and other calf are also pretty bad, though none of the rather impressive lower scratch from sliding down a rock, which admittedly I would still have through O Pants. Maybe I should have had lists and more effective packing for the race. Still it was fun so what does it matter if I have battle scars, I hear chicks dig scars anyway...

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Mon, 18 May 2009

2009 ACT Cyclegaine - 16:15
Yesterday Keith, Danielle and I competed together in the 2009 ACT Cyclegaine. I took some photos (not many) I have uploaded. I think we came 4th over all and 3rd mixed team (just a bit behind Wayne and Matt in mens, behind Randall, Selina and Mark in mixed and a long long way behind an on fire Chris, Nathan and Heather also in mixed).

A fun day out on the bikes in perfect Autumn weather and enjoying the Cotter Dam/Pierces Creek area in ACT.

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Sat, 16 May 2009

One handjob ready to roll - 18:22

Ready to roll on the handjob (fullsize) 		I am doing a cyclegaine tomorrow, however I rode the pink bike on Friday morning and had some problems with the setup, so I finally spent a few hours today and moved all the bits across to the new frame. Here it is ready to roll.

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More evidence of the hard life of a mountain bike - 12:40
So I stripped down my geared mtb today in order to change over to the new frame and looking at the old pink frame it really does show evidence of a lot of hard use. Similar to my comments in October 2006 with even more KM put into the bike.

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Sun, 03 May 2009

My first Yerrabi Multi sport - 20:22
This is a race I have been keen on doing for a few years, however for a few reasons was unable to the last few years. I finally got my chance today, it was a perfect Canberra day, cold enough to go hard but sunny and calm. The results are up already along with a photo gallery.

I rode my cyclocross bike in the race and I think it was a perfect choice for this course, I managed to do the 28KM bike leg in just over 1 hour including transitions and felt pretty comfortable for the entire leg. My total time for the race was 2h8m (for a 4km run, 5km paddle, 28km mtb and 4km run) which I was fairly happy with. Fun was had, thanks to the local Sri Chinmoy Race Team for another good event.

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Fri, 01 May 2009

Lesser exercise week - 21:14
After the fun wet and windy ADE last Saturday I had Sunday off exercise as the wind and conditions got worse I thought. This week on the whole I have had a lesser exercise load then many recent weeks, often recently I have been doing two sessions of some description most days. This week I have kept it at one until today.

Monday I headed out for a fun paddle in Matilda in the cold with one of my house mates, Tuesday I did the Bilbys track running session, Wednesday I did the morning road ride, Thursday I did the morning swim squad. Finally today I did the morning mtb ride and tonight did the evening swim squad. Feeling pretty good, will probably do a road ride tomorrow and then on Sunday I am competing in the Sri Chinmoy Yerrabi pond multi sport race which should be a bit of fun.

As for why I tend to be doing two things on many days the last few weeks I do not really know, I have no current goals in mind, though I guess it suits long term goals, I can simply tell anyone who asks why I am out exercising that it is Jindabyne Multisport prep. Today I also entered the Angry Doctor 100 KM mtb race AROC run in September which will be a nice wind down a week after the World Mountain Bike Championships are over in Canberra.

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Sat, 25 Apr 2009

Anzac Day Epic 2009 - 22:09
I missed the ADE last year, due to a broken collar bone and being up in northern NSW for Matt and Amanda's wedding on Anzac weekend. However in past years it has been a really enjoyable ride (I did not take photos in 2004). So today I was again happy to join in the fun that was the ADE.

My GPS trace from today is a nice 71km, I have not yet uploaded any photos, however Morgs has some online to show off the cold and wet and the fun too.

Turnout was reasonable considering the conditions, though the lack of Crash and JJJim was strange. People there were

Matt - Ibis carbon goodness
JJ - Ibis carbon goodness
Chris W - Ibis car...you get it
Sim - GT Dually
Steve - Steel hardtail
Deathmarch - Steel hardtail
McCook - Reign
McD - Epic of carboness
Adam, EHCW - Trance
Morgs - Nomad.

Fun was had.

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Sun, 19 Apr 2009

Morning run in Sydney - 09:14
So because I am in Sydney for the weekend and still wanted to do some exercise I asked my friend Zoe if she was keen on a run somewhere over the weekend. She said she was keen to head out with the Sydney Striders for their Iron Cove Bolter run and cut it short to have a 20 km run. This sounded good so we headed over there this morning for the 6am start.

Starting with the slow group we had a pleasant 20.7km of running at 5:40 pace chatting with the people there and enjoying the cool nice running conditions the morning had dished up for us. Now for the rest of the day in Sydney after some good morning exercise.

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Mon, 06 Apr 2009

First 24 hour race since February 2006 - 11:12
Well that was interesting, due to being involved with organising CORC events and generally only travelling long distances for Adventure Races or the Gravity 12 hour, I had not competed in a 24 hour mountain bike race since February 2006 (when I raced in the NZ0 24 Hour race in Rotorua, NZ). So this weekend I lined up to compete in the 24 hour race out at Sparrow hill that had nothing to do with CORC.

I was in a 4 person team with Marea (with whom I have competed in Polaris many times), Ian (Marea's partner, who has raced the Scott 24 hour solo and other such things) and an ex Canberra now Brisbane mtber Ged. All was going fairly well until Ian after doing 1 lap on Saturday decided he just could not get his head around the idea of racing 24 hour races any more and wanted to simply do other riding, thus he was not keen to ride any more. This left us as a 3 person team.

I headed out for my 4th and 5th night laps doing a double at around 10pm with our new race plan to do doubles until around 4:30am then singles until dawn and maybe get a friend, Dave A, to ride some laps on Ian's bike in the daylight. However while I was doing my double lap Marea and Ged decided we should rest overnight. I was not incredibly keen on many more night laps so we all went to sleep for a few hours. In the end I rode 6 laps, a total riding time of around 5h40m and felt alright afterwards, though a little bit flat and energy drained today.

Paul set a fantastic course and the rain dump on Friday night was perfectly timed, there was no dust all weekend and the course was tacky and cornering was fast and secure the whole race. I rode one lap on the single speed, however with the chain coming off three times I discovered I needed to take a link out of the chain to get enough tension into it, I did not feel like doing that so rode the geared bike the rest of the time at the race. I was reminded that a duallie would have been faster as you can keep full power down the whole time over bumpy terrain, however it was one of the best hardtail courses around anyway especially with good line choice.

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Tue, 24 Mar 2009

Swimming injuries - 17:00
Continuing my tales of silly injuries, today I have nasty bruising on my left hand from swimming last night. One would think at swimming speeds (rather than high dive from 10 metres up speed) water is fairly harmless and soft, thinking that you are quite correct. The lane ropes at the pool are unfortunately less soft, in a squad session trying to stick to the left of the lane I have a habit of not keeping my arms quite high enough on exit from the water and hence whack my left hand often on the rope.

In the lead up to Jindabyne I noticed my left hand was often swollen on top from this making my bike gloves feel tight on my left hand. I am sure I will stop getting this bruising as much as I swim more and get more used to being in the pool over time.

On another note, I was glancing through some old entries on my diary and noticed one that fairly nicely shows how little I ride these days compared with times in the past. As noted the other day I have not done many days over 100km in the last 18 months (the ride up to Corin on Sunday just now was fortunately another one clocking in at 105km). Back in September 2004 I commented on getting my km count up from a week of only riding 230 km during the Monday to Friday week, so I headed out on the weekend to clock up 281km (175 on road bike and 106 on the mtb) over the two weekend days for a week total of 511km.

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Sun, 22 Mar 2009

Hanging bikes or using shed space effectively. - 18:48

Bikes on the left (fullsize)
Bikes in the middle (fullsize)
Bikes on the right (fullsize)
Bike hooks (fullsize)

So when Danielle moved in to the house here recently the number of bikes increased, then another new housemate moved in who also has some bikes. I finally needed to get around to making the storage of bikes and access to them in the shed more effective. I have been thinking of doing this for years and with lots more bikes in the shed being used I finally got around to it this weekend.

I have 4 bikes I use daily (hardtail mtb, cyclo cross/road bike, single speed mtb, fixie road bike) and another hardtail mtb in working order. I also have an old unisex pub bike sort of thing in the shed and my old road bike sans front wheel, so 7 bikes to get out of the way somewhere. Danielle has 3 bikes in daily usage (dual suspension good mtb, hardtail mtb and new road bike). She also has 2 older bikes she will soon sell. Matt has 2 bikes in daily sort of usage (mtb with slicks and a road bike).

Allan and other friends have erected hooks in their bike rooms or sheds to hang bikes up by a wheel and they then take up less space but are all still easily accessed. I had a look at distances needed between bikes and worked out I can probably hang 12 bikes along one end of the shed. I should dispose of the old pub bike thing and also do something about my old road bike (frame needs repair so not using it). Also I will probably soon loan my spare hardtail mtb to a friend for an extended period. However I have them all up there for now as proof of concept for 12 at once.

The hardware I bought was 2 3 metre lengths of wood to screw into the shed roof beams (cost $15 or $7.50 each), 12 hooks at $6.32 each a packet of 9cm screws (only needed 8) for mounting the wood to the beams ($22.97) and a packet of shorter timber screws for screwing the hooks into the timber ($9.23) and 3 metres of clear vinyl tubing to fit around the hooks to protect the rims. A total cost of AUD $135.01 for the lot.

I bought this at the hardware store yesterday (a mountain biker hang out it seems as I saw Morgs and Joo there and later also so Madge there) and after getting home from a road ride today put it all together. Works a treat as you can see from the photos. Thanks to Danielle for the help putting it up there.

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Thu, 19 Mar 2009

Jindabyne Multisport Classic 2009 - 17:28
Last year I wrote one of my longish and reasonably detailed reports about this race. This year I managed to finish the event solo, however do not feel like writing too much about it. As always the Jindabyne Multisport Classic (they called it a classic, even the first year they ran it...) is a fantastic event. After being pulled out of the water more than 11 hours in during the final swim unable to breathe and cramping up last year I really wanted to finish.

Fortunately I did, though I did not speed up much on last year. I felt fantastic for the first 6 or 7 hours of this race, then sometime during the long run up to sawpit I no longer felt I had enough left in the tank to go hard. I had been hoping that pacing myself I might finally feel I could start putting some effort in at this point, however I was unable to get my HR over 130 for the rest of the race and pretty much crawled all the way to the finish.

Once again my worst leg was definitely swimming, compared with good swimmers in the solo field, such as Alex, I lost almost an hour. Looking at times for excellent swimmers such as Shanyn I lost more, however I can not imagine I will ever swim as well as she does, and I was racing solo anyway. My current plan, rather than stopping swimming again until I start getting ready for this event again next year is to continue to go to at least one coached squad session every week.

On a seeming tangent now, I notice in my GPS/HR training data that since I bought the Garmin in August 2007 I have the distances of all sessions I have done (riding, running, paddling) listed to inspect and view the maps and data from. In that time I have only done a session in which I travelled more than 100KM on 6 occasions. This is pretty pathetic when you consider how easy it is for me to do a road ride over 100 KM. Two of these sessions were the Hawkesbury classic paddle race in 2007 and the Jindabyne race I just finished on Sunday. So I think we can see when compared to how I used to do long road rides at least once a week, generally a longish mountain bike ride every fortnight or so my riding is definitely down on what it once was. Sure I kayak and run now days but none of them tend to be longer than 2 hours very often.

Getting back to the race I think my body just was not ready for more than 6 hours non stop and was not working as well as it could after that time. Also the multi discipline nature of the event was something I had not prepared for well in the lead up. For next year I will definitely need to do more long stuff and make sure I am feeling more ready for such a long stretch out there at intensity.

I must thank my support crew, Kerry, for her help all day. She did a spectacular job and was organised all day and got kept me going despite never having done support like this before, also thanks to Ron for helping her out most of the day. Without their help and some generous help from many others I would not be able to do the event solo.

I did do more swim training before the race this year and I think it showed as I was able to get out of the swims reasonably fresh feeling and was not even the slowest solo competitor in them all. The long ride though I was once more crawling through it, really is spectacular and I recommend it to any mountain bikers who like epic feeling bike legs and big hills and alpine country. The long run is also though a really lovely walking track and when not suffering worth admiring.

Race coverage wise, I have a few photos on my camera but am being a bit lazy to upload them. Sri Chinmoy's gallery page for the event has a fair few (those with me in them are finishing the second bike, transitioning to long run, start of first run, background behind Libby running, start of fun (techy) bike leg, running through Thredbo river picnic area, first swim start with Julie and Alex and getting out of a swim.

There are good shots there of Alex (who won solo mens) and Julie (won solo womens) and a lot of my other friends up there racing. Also there was a professional photographer up there, Greg Long and his event photos are pretty good.

Anyway I enjoyed the event and have a definite interest in trying to do better next year, a spectacular (and hard) day out. I still think more people should enter, it is more fun than Triple Tri, shorter legs, better scenery, something different (though triple tri is itself a lot of fun). Also more solos would be cool (lets hope Zoe, Danielle, Libby and others may be keen to enter next year so it is not just Julie in womens).

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Thu, 12 Mar 2009

How could I say no - 13:17

Sassy Pink Handjob (fullsize) 		My primary geared bike, the bender bicycles steel mtb has now undergone two fixes, the paint job looks kind of ratty and I notice Richard recently retired his KHS steel HT. I have put a lot of hard riding onto this bike and though still nice to ride I had been from time to time looking for another frame just out of interest.

Then I saw this Cove Handjob, in my size selling for AUD $480 in sassy pink colour. How could I say no, it arrived this morning. I probably should not swap the frames before the Jindabyne multisport race on Sunday, after all riding a new frame I am not used to with different geometry and feel may not be the best idea. Tempting to do it now, but I will probably wait until next weekend.

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Thu, 05 Mar 2009

Missing swims - 16:46
Most weeks recently I have been getting along to the Friday evening Bilbys swim squad and other than that getting out for a swim on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This stems from doing lake swims on those days, then when the lake was closed for swimming I simply kept those times at the pool by myself. I have stretching class at lunch on Monday and Wednesday. On Wednesday evenings I do the paddling time trial, and as I swim Friday evening I do not want to do extra swimming that day.

This week I have not been able to swim on either Tuesday or Thursday, though I had been planning to, I simply ended up with too much stuff I was doing out of the office on both days, a lot of it for CORC, that I could not justify being out of the office for a whole additional hour for a swim session. I should have made the effort to swim on Monday after work, however hindsight is always useful this way. A week and a half to go before Jindabyne now, I just have to hope I am relaxed and comfortable enough with the swimming to get through all three and not lose pace too much.

I suspect the hardest will again be the final swim just trying not to cramp and make it through that one will be a big challenge, I already tend to cramp up very easily swimming and once more staying hydrated at Jindabyne will be a constant battle.

This week the Wednesday night paddle time trial did not happen at the club as molonglo reach was also closed to secondary contact sports. A few of us were hoping to do a time trial on the rowing course on the lake as that is open, however it was one of the windiest days in recent times yesterday and there were white caps on the rowing course so when we got there it we were not venturing out of the safety of the sheltered areas.

The normal paddle time trial is 9.6km on the gps. The rowing course is 1.8km so 6 laps of it (3 times out and back) would have been 10.8km, so if it had been nice and calm it would have been a tougher race than we normally do. Ahh well maybe some other time that will work as a replacement race.

Even though there was no group run on Tuesday I still had a good run from home to the top of Mt Ainslie and back via Dickson ovals. That I was able to keep running all the way up and hold a reasonable pace (even though HR was above 170) actually makes me feel I should be alright on the long run at Jindabyne next weekend.

With the long weekend coming up, I hope to get a few good sessions in, Sam is keen to do some long stuff on Saturday (maybe a run, a paddle and a ride if she can leave Ben with the kids for that much of the day, we will see). I was keen to do the AROC urban race on this weekend however almost none of my friends seem to be interested in it this year which is most unusual. Danealle and Danielle are doing it but everyone else seemed a bit hohum and are off doing other stuff.

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